Read Online The Double Crown: Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh by Marié Heese - Free Book Online

about whose achievements on the battlefield many admiring tales were told. Always he had seemed to me to be a person of great stature and dignity, a person invested with authority and not a little mystery. But I took comfort from the reflection that his royal Ka would surely maintain its force even as his earthly body became diminished.
    We would be sailing with the current, but against the wind, which almost always blows from the north. However, there was very little wind that morning, so the rowers would not have as hard a task as they would have done had the wind been strong. High on the bow a tall Nubian stood, keeping time for the rowers with a large brass gong; the rowers chanted a rhythmic song as they bent to their oars. As usual the river was busy. Other gongs from similar boats could be heard across the water. Shouts and orders echoed. Light boats woven of reeds slipped between the heavier barges carrying large cargoes of materials and food and the fine boats similar to ours that would be bearing persons of status.
    We had set forth early but already the day was warm; the sky was a cloudless blue reflected in the water slipping by. My father was resting with his eyes shut; he seemed to have dropped off to sleep. For a moment I wondered whether he still breathed, but then a gentle snore reassured me. But I was far from sleep and I sat upright next to Senenmut the scribe, imitating his scribe’s pose with the folded knees. Ah yes, time was when I could sit like that for a long time and then jump up and run.
    I was fascinated by the bustling river traffic. Between the smaller boats some large ships were ponderously navigating the waterway towards the quay that we had left, bringing, I knew, cedarwood from Lebanon, gold from the mines in Sinai, ivory, ebony, strange animals and more gold from Nubia.
    “Look, Princess,” said Senenmut, “there go the Keftiu. They have sailed from very far away, where few Egyptians have ever sailed.” He looked envious, as if he too would like to sail to distant lands.
    I decided to allow him back into my favour. “Would you like to do that?”
    “Above all things,” he said, with a sigh.
    “So why are you not a sailor?”
    “My father thought a scribe would have better prospects.”
    “I think our sailors should be more venturesome,” I said. “There may be rich lands that we know not of, with whom we could also trade our grain and wine, our linen and pottery. When I am Pharaoh …” I bit my lip. “If I were Pharaoh,” I amended, peeping at him from under my lids. He kept his face straight, but his eyes were twinkling. I had the feeling that very little would ever escape him.
    “Yes, Princess?” he prompted politely.
    “I would order our sailors to explore,” I said. “To go further than they are used to.”
    He nodded. “You too would like to go further than you are used to, I think,” he said.
    “Indeed I would,” I said. “Indeed I would.”
    Just at that moment we were approaching a bay of striking beauty on the western bank, where stark, massive rock formations reared up behind a broad plain. A white building, not very big and partially fallen in, stood against the cliffs. Yet it had graceful lines, fronted by crumbling terraces linking with the plain.
    “What place is that?” I asked sharply, jumping up from the dais and moving to the side of the boat. Senenmut rose to join me.
    “The bay, Princess, is Djeser-Djeseru, a holy place where Hathor resides. The building is the temple of Mentuhotep the Second, may he live. He was a great Pharaoh, a unifier and a builder.”
    “I like the sound of that,” I said. “A unifier and a builder. Good things to be.”
    “Yes,” agreed Senenmut. “It is a mortuary temple, of course.”
    “Of course,” I said. The temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak lay at our backs on the east bank and it was a living, working community. If I turned around I could see its impressive pylons and pillars. The west bank, I knew, was the